VOTING IS A RESPONSIBILTY, NOT JUST A RIGHT…
1723 by Jeff Hess1723: To vote or not to vote
14 October 2011
14 October 2011
WOW… JUST FECKIN’ WOW…!
0955 by Jeff HessSherrod Brown, are you watching?
Marcia Fudge, do you hear us?
Rob Portman, are you paying attention?
John Kasich, can you understand?
14 October 2011
DAYTON HAS NEGATIVE UNEMPLOYMENT…?
0900 by Jeff Hess14 October 2011
14 October 2011
MAYOR BLOOMBERG BACKS DOWN IN NEW YORK…
0656 by Jeff Hess[See update below…]
From the Associated Press:
The cleanup of a plaza in lower Manhattan where protesters have been camped out for a month was postponed early Friday, sending cheers up from a crowd that had feared the effort was merely a pretext to evict them.
Deputy Mayor Cas Holloway said the owners of the private park, Brookfield Office Properties, had put off the cleaning, scheduled for 7 a.m. More than hour beforehand, supporters of the protesters had started streaming into the park, creating a crowd of several hundred chanting people.
A confrontation between police and protesters, who had vowed to stay put through civil disobedience, had been feared. Boisterous cheers floated up from the crowds as the announcement of the postponement circulated, and protesters began polling each other on whether to make an immediate march to Wall Street, a few blocks away.
#Occupy Cleveland is reporting that:
At the 11th hour in NY, our union friends came out in thousands bearing signs that said “NYPD protects the rich” and encircled liberty plaza to thunderous cheers and applause. The deputy mayor has annonced they have delayed plans to clean the park!
[Update @ 0744: #OccupyCleveland This one mentions the unions. I’ll remind everyone that the corporate press has every incentive to make our mainstream support seem marginal. This revolution will not be televised.]
But I’ve not been able to find any other mention on line of union involvement yet. I’m still checking.
14 October 2011
14 October 2011
ELIOT SPITZER IS WRONG, WRONG, WRONG…!
0547 by Jeff HessOccupy Wall Street has already won, perhaps not the victory most of its participants want, but a momentous victory nonetheless. It has already altered our political debate, changed the agenda, shifted the discussion in newspapers, on cable TV, and even around the water cooler. And that is wonderful.
Suddenly, the issues of equity, fairness, justice, income distribution, and accountability for the economic cataclysm–issues all but ignored for a generation—are front and center. We have moved beyond the one-dimensional conversation about how much and where to cut the deficit. Questions more central to the social fabric of our nation have returned to the heart of the political debate. By forcing this new discussion, OWS has made most of the other participants in our politics—who either didn’t want to have this conversation or weren’t able to make it happen—look pretty small.
The 99 Percent has won some skirmishes, but to suggest that we have already won is at best hubris and at worst subversive. The 1 percent continue to control the message and the resources. Yes, more and more of the 99 percent are questioning that message, but if #occupy rolls up the tents and goes home today, no one will remember next week what was accomplished.
I think that Spitzer meant well, but he is wrong, wrong, wrong!
14 October 2011
14 October 2011
VETERAN ELITES DENY ACCESS ON PUBLIC SQUARE…
0541 by Jeff HessI am a veteran. I stood ready to do my duty for 11 years. I was lucky. In my lifetime millions of my fellow sailors, soldiers, marines and airmen did what I did and much, much more. Hundreds of thousands lost their limbs, their sight, their hearing, their minds. Tens of thousands didn’t come home at all.
At the end of what they knew as the Great War, the Bonus Army marched on Washington. In a recent compilation of his post-war cartoons, Bill Mauldin documents the abuse of returning personnel from WW II. Our heroes returning from Korea and Vietnam found a nation that wasn’t interested in their problems. The numbers of homeless vets returning from three wars in the Middle East should make our nation weep.
Occupy Cleveland and tens of thousands across America taking a stand against the 1 percent, count veterans among their ranks. Proud Americans, Americans who understand what it means to defend our Constitution, should be ashamed by the harm done here by these representatives of the 1 percent.
13 October 2011
TEA PARTY V. #OCCUPY MAY NOT HAPPEN…
1207 by Jeff HessTime has a blog post pondering whether the two anti-elite, anti-corruption movements could ever unite. “It’s not that far-fetched,” Roya Wolverson writes. “In some ways, the tea party and OWS are like doppelganagers… Both groups are repulsed by their taxpayer dollars funding Wall Street’s bailout. Both are disenchanted by the death of the American dream. And both feel left out of a system that seems less like a democracy than a cavalier plutocracy.” The post links to a Venn diagram by blogger James Sinclair showing where the two movements’ grievances overlap.
Edward Longshanks was part of the 1 percent. This is the outcome I’d love to see…
13 October 2011
13 October 2011
13 October 2011
YET ANOTHER FBI PHONEY TERRORIST ATTACK…
1012 by Jeff HessIf you thought that faking a threat was just a Bush tactic, you have another think coming.
Adam Serwer writes: 4 Things You Need to Know About the Iran Bomb Plot
Mano Singham is also on the case:
So I turn on the radio this morning and hear Tom Gjelten of NPR regale me with a sensational story of how the US government had busted a plot by the Iranian government to collude with a hit man associated with the Mexican drug cartels to kill the Saudi Arabian ambassador in a restaurant in the US, along with hundreds of bystanders. As always, faithful government stenographer that he is, Gjelten (in his case NPR stands for National Pentagon Radio) excitedly passes on uncritically what he hears from the US government.
But I no longer believe what the US government says (unless it provides credible evidence, which it almost never does) because they have proven themselves to be serial liars. It does not seem to give Gjelten pause that all the other breathless revelations of plots against Americans in the US turned out to be cases in which the perpetrators were lured by US government agents who then unmasked the plots with great fanfare.
13 October 2011
13 October 2011
WEST & SMILEY V. O’REILLY ON #OCCUPY…
1003 by Jeff HessFrom MEDIAite:
The discussion was focused primarily on alleged corruption in the financial sector that has been brought under the spotlight with the Occupy Wall Street protests. When O’Reilly cited Merrill Lynch CEO Stanley O’Neal as an example, West asked his host why he cited the one of five black CEOs, to which O’Reilly shot back “knock it off with the black business will ya?”
13 October 2011
13 October 2011
HARRY BELAFONTE: #OCCUPY & SING YOUR SONG…
0931 by Jeff HessFrom The Root:
TR: You’ve participated in innumerable marches, protests and demonstrations in your life. What’s your take on Occupy Wall Street?
HB: The participants are the direct descendants of the people you’ll see in Sing Your Song.
TR: Why don’t more of today’s black artists use their platforms for social justice the way you have, and how can we encourage them to do so?
HB: I think we have a large harvest of wonderful artists. I think there’s much more they could be doing. I hope this inspires them to see what those possibilities are. I hope they’ll step out and do it.
TR: What would you like to see them do?
HB: I’d like them to speak out more about our human condition, and inspire people to take charge of their lives and the possibilities of freedom for people.
TR: You’ve been actively involved in a range of political and social issues for decades. What are the top three issues you’d like to draw attention to today?
HB: First, the criminalization of poverty. We’re criminalizing the poor. This country has the largest prison population in the world. Second, I’d like people to pay attention to the fact that we don’t have to kill the world in order to rule it. We should stop going to war. Third, we should take a more compassionate approach to the redistribution of wealth in this country.
13 October 2011
13 October 2011
FIVE OF THE DUMBEST STATEMENTS ON #OCCUPY…
0926 by Jeff HessFrom Colorlines:
1. Fox & Friends: Occupy Wall Street is “full of felons and drug users.”
2. Newt Gingrich: Occupy Wall Street is full of “dumb ideas.”
3. Rep. Peter King: “We must stop those ragtag mobs and anarchists before they actually change policy.”
4. Monica Crowley: Wall Street protestors are “useful idiots who probably haven’t paid much in taxes their whole life.”
5. Herman Cain: Occupy Wall Street protesters are a bunch of “jealous Americans” who “play the victim card” and want to “take somebody else’s Cadillac.”
